UPDATED: 1st Look at Marvel NOW! AVENGERS Lineup

By Albert Ching, Newsarama Staff Writer September 4, 2012 09:19am ET

Updated, again (again): On Formspring, Avengers writer Jonathan Hickman has confirmed that the shadowed character on the cover to Avengers #1 is Eden Fesi from Secret Warriors, under the new superhero name of "Manifold."
Updated, again: Per series writer Jonathan Hickman on Twitter, it is indeed Sunspot on the cover, between Thor and Iron Man.
UPDATED with new larger image: The Avengers lineup in the Marvel NOW! era has been promised to be big, and readers got their first look at the team as a whole Tuesday on Marvel.com.
Three interlocking covers for Avengers #1-#3 show all six of the movie Avengers — Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye — plus Brian Michael Bendis-era additions Spider-Man, Wolverine and Spider-Woman; along with frequent team members Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) and Falcon.
New to the squad is Cannonball of the New Mutants, along with two unconfirmed characters: One that looks Human Torch-esque (Johnny Storm? Jim Hammond? Or perhaps a slightly tweaked look for Cannonball's New Mutant buddy Sunspot?) and a shadowed figure between Captain America and Captain Marvel likely intended to remain a mystery for now (though feel free to speculate — the chest symbols bring to mind Ikaris of the Eternals, maybe?)
In a July interview with Newsarama, Avengers editor Tom Brevoort said that by issue #12 of the relaunched Avengers, the team has an "an active roster of about 18," indicating that there are around four more members to come not seen in this image. Upon the original announcement of Marvel NOW! two months ago, Entertainment Weekly reported that Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, would be on the team.
Dustin Weaver, who is scheduled to draw an upcoming Avengers arc, illustrated all three covers. Current Fantastic Four and FF writer Jonathan Hickman is launching the new twice-monthly Avengers series in December, and New Avengers with artist Steve Epting in January.

Update: Jonathan Hickman has commented on the covers on Twitter, writing, "Image released today is not the complete roster, we intentionally left off new characters for spoiler reasons." and "And the roster starts at 18, grows to more." In later tweets, he disclosed that there are eight more members still to come.